City schools have 22 of state’s top 25 performers on Common Core exams

‘City schools have made great strides over the past decade,’ said Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott. (Bryan Smith for New York Daily News)

City school officials managed to find a few glimmers of good news on the new tougher state tests that sent math and reading scores plummeting last week, a city analysis shows.

Of the 25 top-performing schools statewide, 22 are in the city, the Education Department found.

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"Ten years ago, there were no New York City schools in the top 25 schools in the state; today, the city has 22," said Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott in a statement, adding that's up from 19 last year.

City kids' abysmally low passing rates on this year's exams — just under 30% for math and 26% on reading — have presented a challenge for the Bloomberg administration's efforts to make the case for the last 12 years of school reforms. Only 31% of state students passed math and reading.

This latest analysis of the tests for grades 3 to 8 highlights 22 stellar city schools, most of whom have an advantage going into the exams.

They are designated for gifted students — or select their students based on a rigorous application process. In most of the state, kids attend their neighborhood school, though other districts also have selective schools.

The city, following up on a classroom-by-classroom computer analysis by the Daily News, ranked schools by averaging the passing rate for both the math and the reading test across all grades.

At the top school, Manhattan's Anderson School, an average of 97% of students scored proficient on the tests.

The school is one of five designated for the city's most gifted students, who must score on or above the 97th percentile of a placement exam beginning at age 4.

"Our teachers just work very hard, and so do the kids," said Anderson principal Jodi Hyde.

"At 4 years old, they don't come in understanding the Common Core," the term for the new tougher standards that require more critical thinking and analysis.

(New York Daily News)

But critics took issue with the city's efforts to spin the numbers into good news.

"We don't believe the test scores are the be-all and end-all; this administration made them that," said teachers union president Michael Mulgrew.